University of Dubuque Announces 2015 Commencement Ceremonies

May 14, 2015

The University of Dubuque today announced the calendar of events for its 163rd Commencement for 554 undergraduate, graduate, and seminary students.

College Commencement Events

The College Baccalaureate Service will be held Friday, May 15, at 5:00 p.m. in Heritage Center’s John and Alice Butler Hall. This year’s Baccalaureate Service speaker will be Reverend Jim Gunn, Edwin B. Lindsay Chaplain to Students, who has chosen As You Walk Along… as the title of his remarks.

Following the Baccalaureate Service, the University will host the annual Senior Dinner for graduating seniors and their families at the Grand River Center (by invitation only) in the Ballroom.

The University of Dubuque will confer degrees on 396 undergraduate and 119 graduate students during its 163rd College Commencement Ceremony on Saturday, May 16, beginning at 1:00 p.m. in the Chlapaty Recreation and Wellness Center on the University of Dubuque Campus. Mary Anne Knefel, university librarian, will deliver the Commencement Address, titled Eager to Meet the Person I am Going to Become.

Knefel joined the University of Dubuque in 1980, holding the positions of reference librarian, and assistant library director, before becoming university librarian in 2004. She holds a master in library science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a master of business administration from the University of Dubuque, and a bachelor of arts in history and English from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. In addition to the University’s Charles C. Myers Library, she has held positions at the University of Illinois Library of the Health Sciences—Rockford Branch, Carnegie-Stout Library in Dubuque, Biology Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Seymour Library at Knox College.

Seminary Commencement Events

The University of Dubuque Theological Seminary Baccalaureate Service will be held Friday, May 15, at 9:30 a.m. in Blades Chapel. Dr. Annalee Ward, director of the Wendt Center, will deliver the homily titled The Gift of Glory.

The University’s Seminary will confer degrees on 39 students – 30 residential and distance master of divinity, 4 master of arts in missional Christianity, and 5 doctor of ministry – during the Seminary Commencement Ceremony on Saturday, May 16 at 9:30 a.m. in Heritage Center’s John and Alice Butler Hall.

Rev. Dr. Eric Jacobsen, senior pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Tacoma, WA, will deliver the Seminary’s Commencement Address, titled Not So With You.

Dr. Jacobson is the Author of The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment and Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith. He earned the master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in theology and culture from Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the President of the Synod Executive Council for ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. Dr. Jacobsen lives in Tacoma with his wife, Liz, and four children.